Educators from around the country gathered at Vanderbilt late last week to focus on the increasingly popular notion of paying teachers for their performance, not just seniority.
Education researchers seem to come down on different sides of the issue, but most at the conference agreed that some form of merit-based pay would be an improvement over the current salary scale that favors a master’s degree over performance in the classroom.
Derek Neal, from the University of Chicago, says it would be a mistake to establish a national or even statewide incentive pay program. He says schools within a district like Metro Nashville differ so greatly that only the principal can know who deserves a bonus for good work.
“Let him, if he knows he gave the two roughest kids in school to this teacher last year, let him or her adjust for that.”
Other school administrators counter that such a plan would either turn into a game of favorites or simply become a rotating set of bonuses, because the principal doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
All school districts in the state must begin a pay plan that offers some kind of bonuses in the next school year. For Metro, board members and the teacher’s union are waiting on state approval of their proposal. Teachers at three under-achieving schools will be eligible for recruitment and retention bonuses, adding up to 21-thousand dollars over three years. The incentive pay will not be based on student achievement.
On Air - 90.3 WPLN-FM